Padme was walking next to Captain Typho, when the explosion knocked them both down to the ground. Lifting up her head, Padme looked to the now burning cruiser. She saw the bodies and that was when she saw her laying on the ground. Getting up from the ground, just as the alarms went off, she began drowning out the cries of the astonished onlookers and the wails of the injured. Padme pushed passed Typho and ran towards the fallen form of her friend and decoy. Padme arrived at the fallen body, dropping to one knee, she pulled the helmet from her head and quickly shook her brown tresses free.
“ Senator! Come on, the danger has not passed!” Typho yelled out to the Senator.
Padme waved the Captain back furiously, before bending low to her falling friend.
“ Corde.” Padme said quietly, her voice started breaking, as she gathered Corde up in her arms and began hugging her gently.
Corde was one of her beloved bodyguards. A woman who had been with her, serving her and serving Naboo, for many years. Corde opened her eyes, rich brown orbs, so similar to Padme’s own. She stared straight up into the girl, who was holding her.
“ I am sorry, Milady . . . I am . . . not sure. I . . . I have failed you.” Corde gasped, struggling for breath with every word. She paused and laid there, and kept staring up at Padme.
“ No! No, no, No!” Padme arguing with the dying bodyguard’s reasoning and arguing against all of the insanity that was all around them.
Corde just continued to stare at her, or just pass her, it really seemed to the grief-stricken young Senator. Looking past her and past everything, Corde’s eyes just stared into a far different place. Padme felt her friend relax suddenly, as if her spirit simply leapt from her corporeal form.
“ Corde!” Padme cried, as she held and hugged her friend close. Then, she just began rocking her back and forth, denying this awful reality of her friend’s death.
“ Milady, you are still in danger!” Typho declared, trying to sound sympathetic, but with a clear sense of urgency in his voice.
Padme lifted up her head from the side of Corde’s face. She took a deep and steadying breath. Looking upon her dead friend, remembering all at once, the many times they had spent together, she gently lowered Corde to the ground.
“ I should not have come back.” Padme stood up beside the wary Typho, tears streaking her cheeks, as she looked down at Corde, before turning to the man standing beside her.
He stood there, just long enough to lock stares with his Senator.
“ This vote is very important. You did your duty, Senator. Corde did hers. Now, please come on.” Typho reminded Padme, his tone uncompromising; the voice of a man who is sworn to duty above all else, so much like his uncle before him.
“ Senator Amidala! Please, we need to go!” he started to grab Padme’s arm, but she shrugged off his grasp. She just stood there, staring down at her lost friend, one last time.
Padme looked over at him again.
“ Would you so diminish Corde’s death, as to stand here and risk your own life? What good will her sacrifice be if . . . “ Typho bluntly stated.
“ Enough, Captain!” Padme interrupted the man, as she turned to him again.
Typho motioned for Dolphe to run a defensive perimeter behind them. Then, he lead the stricken Padme away from the dead woman. Back at Padme’s Naboo fighter, R2-D2 beeped and squealed and fell into line behind them. Padme entered the Senate Building and headed for the platform that belonged to Naboo. She just sat down and quietly listened to the other Senators, as they just kept on arguing about this and that. But of course, she was not really listening to what was being said. Her mind and heart was elsewhere, which was with her long dead friend. She had a feeling that this was going to be very long day.
Authors Note *(pages 43-45 from the book – Star Wars: Episode II: Attack of the Clones by R. A. Salvatore)